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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



JAN 2? 'R87 



FRESH BAIT 



FOR 



Fishers of Men. 



Rev. F. Barrows Makepeace. Rev. Smith Baker. 

Rev. W. L. Gage, d.d. Rev. Reuen Thomas, ph.d. 

Mr. C. E. Bolton. 




BOSTON AND CHICAGO: 
Congregational ^untoag^djool anU Publishing ^octets* 






The Library 
of Congress 

WASHINGTON 



COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY 
CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND PUBLISHING SOCIETY. 



ElectrotyPed and printed by 
Stanley and Usher, 171 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass. 



PREFACE. 



The reason for asking the attention of the busy public to 
another book is the need, helpfulness, and promise of the 
kind of work advocated, and the evident timeliness of it, as 
shown by the many requests which have reached me for the 
knowledge this book seeks to supply. It proposes a hope- 
ful line of work for the Church, describes some methods of 
carrying it forward, and relates the successes reached by 
those who have engaged in it. It recognizes a special need 
of working people and of the poor, and seeks, by satisfying 
it, to open the door for a wider and more appreciative hearing 
of the gospel. " Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, 
but that which is natural ; then that which is spiritual." 

The first and the last two chapters contain portions of an 
essay read before the Congregational Ministers 1 Meeting of 
Boston, 22d March, 1886, upon the topic: " The Respon- 
sibility of the Church for the Entertainment of the People. " 

The other chapters were kindly contributed, at my request, 
by the successful workers in similar fields, whose names they 
bear. It seemed well, in view of the large immigration of 
German life to our country, that one recently from Germany 
should speak of entertainments there, and this has been done 
by one whose helpfulness to me, in many ways, and for many 
years, I thankfully acknowledge. 

Each writer is responsible for his own contribution only. 

F. BARROWS MAKEPEACE. 
The Free Church Manse, Andover, Mass., 13 Sept., 1886. 



OTtyateber of ttyts bock is mine, E oeotcate to tfje fattfjful 
people foijiri} 31 serue as pastor* 



"The question of amusements is one that requires wise 
methods of solution, for there is nothing we have more need 
to do than to make life a little more beautiful, fuller of prom- 
ise and gladness, for laboring men. We all ought to feel that 
a people has a right to be happy, and happy all good men will 
seek to make them." 

Principal A. M. Fairbairn, d.d. 

" The cry of the poor is just only on the theory that every 
man is a child of God and the heir of eternity ; his impassioned 
plea must be thrown out, without even a hearing, in the court 
of materialistic evolution, where superior energy determines 
every question of right." 

Rev. A. J. F. Behrends, d.d. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Breadth of Christ's Ministry: A Neglected Spot. 

By Rev. F. Barrows Makepeace 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Hints from Germany. By Rev. W. L. Gage, d.d. . . . 17 

CHAPTER III. 
Working People and City-life. By Rev. Smith Baker . 25 

CHAPTER IV. 
An Experience With Outsiders. By Rev. Reuen Thomas, 
ph.d 37 

CHAPTER V. 
Practical Education and. * Entertainment for the 

People. By Mr. C.^E. Bolton 46 

CHAPTER VI. 
The People's Course in Andover. By Rev. F. Barrows 

Makepeace 67 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Outlook. By Rev. F. Barrows Makepeace .... 84 



CHAPTER I. 

BREADTH OF CHRIST'S MINISTRY: 
A NEGLECTED SPOT. 

By Rev. F. BARROWS MAKEPEACE. 

r I ^HE ministry of Jesus Christ was a different 
-*- ministry from that of the representative 
pastors of to-day. It was different not merely in 
that he wrought miracles and had an original 
message to declare : it was of wider application to 
human life. The messengers from John the Bap- 
tist asked : " Art thou he that cometh, or look 
we for another ?" Jesus made answer by deed 
and word : " In that hour he cured many of 
diseases and plagues and evil spirits ; and on 
many that were blind he bestowed sight. . . . 
Go your way and tell John the things which ye 
do hear and see : the blind receive their sight, 
and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and 
the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and 
the poor have good tidings preached to them." 
It is easy to see that as the work of Christ 
went forward and was committed to other hands, 



8 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

it must be broken up into various professions, and 
that the various elements would, through acquired 
habits and heredity, become, to some extent, the 
characteristics of individual life. But all these 
professions and personal traits should have taken 
with them, and should bear to-day, the impress and 
character of Jesus Christ. To each man he says : 
" Follow me;" and " This is my commandment, 
that ye love one another, even as I have loved 
you." It would be an easy task to draw out 
the various lines of our Lord's life-work, and 
doubtless we should be astonished at the breadth 
of his ministry, so greatly have we lost sight of 
its wide interest and application. 

It would also be easy to show that while the 
mind of the Church has at different times been 
greatly stirred by discussions about the successors 
of the apostles, there has been by far too little 
thought of the successors of Christ as the Physi- 
cian, the Educator, the Philanthropist, the Friend 
of the bodily tired, and in other lines of his 
chosen labor. Yet along all these lines run the 
commands of Christ, and the love of God and 
man should make his disciples rise and walk in all 
these paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 
The Church has not yet appreciated the greatness 



BREADTH OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. Q 

of opportunity and variety of undertaking in- 
cluded in its mission to those at home. Along 
many lines of his work the ministry of Christ is 
either suspended or done but feebly. Yet the 
command is, to go into all the world, — not simply 
as displayed upon the atlas, but into all the world, 
— the business world, the industrial world, the 
social world, and the educational world, the world 
of thought and work, and the world of -play and 
abandon, and preach the gospel to every creature. 

Man's lawful recreation was a matter of Christ's 
concern. Though occupied with the affairs of two 
worlds, of time and eternity, and having the most 
urgent work conceivable to do, it was he who was 
touched with compassion when he saw the tired 
multitude, and who said to his disciples : " Come 
ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest 
awhile." This was part of his holy ministry to 
weary men. In this, as in all his goings, we are 
to follow him. 

It is part of the work of God's people to provide 
legitimate entertainment for the world ; to furnish 
an hour of rest and freedom amidst the burdens 
of daily life. 

Not all want is of the kind that direct gifts of 
money will relieve. The ruts of care and worry 



10 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

have been ground deep into many a soul ; and the 
ministry of pure pleasure and the lifting-power 
of a higher thought form the kind of medicine that 
is needed. This, God is ever seeking to give, by 
the attractions of the natural world and the love 
of play, beauty, and knowledge which he implants 
in the soul. What purpose is there in all the music 
of the birds, the beauties of woods and sea, but the 
entertainment of men ? And for what are the 
gifts of human song and eloquence, if not to assist 
us in bearing one another's burdens ? 

But how much of the machinery of public enter- 
tainment has fallen into hands which own no disci- 
pleship to Christ ! Let the Church spend less time 
in advertising theaters by preaching against them, 
and devote itself to furnishing what is better. And 
let it do this, not only because it is good policy, 
but as an act of intelligent loyalty to Christ. 

" How can the Church reach the masses ? " is 
the question which, with convention, conference, 
and club, has best kept its popularity with age. 
Various answers are made, projects are discussed, 
and measures undertaken, but the question re- 
mains unanswered. Much disappointment and 
surprise are apparent that this is so. But unan- 
swered it must long remain. No age before the last 



BREADTH OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. I I 

can make the full reply. For the relations of the 
people to the Church are constantly undergoing a 
change, new causes of separation are being devel- 
oped daily, and there must frequently be new- 
adaptations of Christianity. 

Perhaps the one place more than others, in 
which the enemy of all good seems to be especially 
intrenched and to remain unmolested, and where 
the gospel conquest should be made instantly, is 
the world of amusement. 

The wide range of the theater, the incidental 
evils connected with many " first-class entertain- 
ments," the steady patronage of the "dens" and 
the "dives " and the "low concerts " in the cities, 
are too well known to need more than the merest 
mention. Nor do they make manifest the whole 
matter, but may be understood as the outer door 
of the Temple of Sin, within whose secret cham- 
bers the apostle's assertions in the first chapter of 
his letter to the Romans are verified. Yet now 
and then we hear of a young man or young woman 
who has been saved as " a brand from the burn- 
ing" by being more than warned — won away 
to the love of better things, from the door about 
to be entered. At that place, and in that 
hour, the gospel was applied, the ministry of 



12 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

Christ was perfect. But this work of Christian 
people has lacked both plan and energy. It is 
forgotten that ours is the free air of popular gov- 
ernment ; that we have placed under the masses the 
common-school system — a mighty engine to create 
an appetite for better things ; and that, as a result, 
the poor of to-day, more than the poor of any 
other day, feel the higher class of wants. They 
hunger for better homes, for considerate notice, 
for knowledge to match their opportunities. This, 
while not true of each individual, is characteristic 
of the poor of to-day. Yet they are weary when 
their day's work is done, and are in no condition 
to engage in severe study. The total number of 
employees in manufacturing establishments is 
rapidly increasing in America. Such employees 
are in much greater need of legitimate amusement 
than the agricultural laborers. For the latter toil in 
the world of beauty. For them the world with all 
its variety of outline, the sky with its ever-chang- 
ing scenery, the march of the year, as it presents 
" first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear," through the wide range of the earth's 
productions, presents a panorama of beauty, accom- 
panied by the concerted praise of the birds of the 
woods. While the farm-worker is thus cheered 



BREADTH OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. 1 3 

and rested as he proceeds, the operative is follow- 
ing the dizzy thread or tending the monotonous 
machine close by the endless, dangerous belt. To 
the farmer amusement is welcome ; to the opera- 
tive it is a prime necessity of physical well-being. 
He must have amusement as a necessary element 
of recreation, and to some extent he seeks instruc- 
tion. The two make proper entertainment, which 
Christian people, especially employers and edu- 
cators, should furnish. 

The operative can live without more knowledge, 
but he can not long endure without recreation. 
Physical necessities compel him to the latter, and 
if he can not find what he wants he will naturally 
take such as exist. Thus, too often, he becomes 
the waiting victim of such as seek to satisfy their 
selfish, vicious purposes by hiding the devil's hooks 
with the bait of amusement. For, unless Christian 
people provide suitable entertainment, what can 
the ordinary wage-worker find ? It is always easy 
to find low entertainments that are made inexpen- 
sive by the fact that they draw crowds to various 
incidental and profitable traffic. The cigar-store, 
the low theater, the vicious dancing-rooms, and 
the liquor-saloon offer the laborer amusement at a 
money-price which he can pay. The German takes 



14 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

his wife and children to the beer-garden or to the 
public park, where with lager and coarse wit 
they make holiday of the Sabbath. We do not 
care to encourage that, nor the exhausting Sunday 
excursion, usually devoid of religious restraint, to 
beach or mountain. We tell men to shun things 
foul and disreputable and to keep the Sabbath 
holy. In this we do well. But have we nothing 
more to say ? Does the Christian's duty cease 
with the utterance of this negative advice ? If 
not to those places and pleasures which we rightly 
discourage and condemn, where shall the tired 
laborer, who for ten or twelve hours has done 
nothing but keep certain pieces of machinery in 
order, whose mind is hungry and body tired — where 
shall he go ? Where shall he recreate ? " To the 
mill, to sleep, and to the church." Is that all a 
Christian civilization has to say to the workin 
people ? If not, where else shall we tell them to 
go ? How much of the ordinary course of lectures 
and concerts can a man enjoy who supports a 
family out of ten dollars a week, and not that, 
generally, for all the weeks in the year ? 

It is said that a popular clergyman received 
$400 for one lecture in Andover, where the 
largest hall seats but six hundred. A common 



£> 



BREADTH OF CHRIST S MINISTRY. 1 5 

fee for popular lecturers is $100 per night ; while 
the prima donnas draw the gold of both worlds in 
their train. How many tickets to such concerts 
is the worker at $10 per week able to buy? If 
he attends, can his wife go also ? Yet which 
needs it more ? Shall the older children go ? How 
many ? Yet is not their life fuller of the need of 
amusement ? Is it right that the operative should 
be obliged to expend the wages of ten hours in 
order to enjoy one? or that a week's wages 
should be required to buy the tickets for him- 
self and family to an ordinary course of entertain- 
ments ? These questions are not long discussed 
in such families. First, they must eat and have 
clothes. How much is there left to be expended 
for any thing that can wait ? Where shall the 
evening be spent ? A man, a boy that has 
breathed mill-dust for ten hours does n't want any 
advice from us about staying at home nights. He 
wants a chance to get a little of God's free air 
and to know more about the great world he lives 
in. What air shall he breathe, and at whose feet 
shall he learn ? Shall he be left the prey of cir- 
cumstances ? Is the employer's duty done when 
the machinery stops ? Has a Christian civilization 
no remedy for this state of things ? What field is 



l6 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

whiter for the harvest ? Certainly there is abun- 
dant need that this kind of work should be taken 
up widely and at once, and pushed with vigor. 
The Church has reason to engage in the largely 
suspended ministry of entertainment for work- 
ing people, which we have seen long since was the 
concern of Christ, but which we have "lost 
awhile." 

Are there not practical methods, the results of 
experience, which may furnish needed help ? Are 
there not beneficial results already reached, which 
should encourage pastors and Christian employers 
to take up this most practical sort of helpfulness ? 
Is there not here fresh bait for fishers of men ? 

It is to be hoped that, together with some fur- 
ther discussion, from different points of view, of 
the necessity of such labor, these questions will 
find their answers in the following chapters. 



CHAPTER II. 

HINTS FROM GERMANY. 

By Rev. W. L. GAGE, D.D. 

TT has been thought by the originator of this 
■*■ book that a chapter, contributed by one who 
has enjoyed special facilities for seeing the uses of 
musical entertainments in Germany, might, in the 
mere delineation of the manner in which purvey- 
ors to popular needs meet the demand on them in 
that country, set before our Christian workers a 
model. It is understood at the outset, of course, 
that this book is an appeal to those who are endeav- 
oring to lift up their fellows in the name of Christ, 
the motive being the noblest of all and the end 
the grandest of all. I am not sure that a delinea- 
tion of the popular amusements of Germany will 
do much in meeting an end like this : but, as Ger- 
many is now in the ascendant ; as its theories of 
education, its ideas of religion, of taste, art, and 
government, and, indeed, all the great concerns in 
men's minds, are now copiously studied, it may be 
that, even in so slight a matter as the lighter 



1 8 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

amusements of Germany, something may be found 
which we, as practical Christians, may be able to 
apply in the methods of our church-work. 

There is one reason why we are not likely in 
America to rival the cheap concerts which are 
found in Germany : namely, that we are not, as a 
nation, so addicted to eating and drinking as the 
Germans are. Not that we are not quite as in- 
temperate in our use of food and drink as they, 
but we are not so incessant in our cravings. 
Enter a German railway - station in town or 
country ; enter a waiting-room of any kind, and 
you see at once the most ample provision for 
whole hordes of eaters and drinkers, and as you 
drive along the most retired road and come to a 
bit of pretty scenery, you find that no German can 
enjoy it without some adequate entertainment for 
his stomach at the same time. Nor must it be over- 
looked that at all the cheap concerts little tables 
clutter the halls, and they are always loaded with 
jugs of beer or cups of coffee, with plates of 
sausages, thin-cut slices of bread and butter, Swiss 
cheese, sweet-cake, and other national character- 
istic refreshments. And it came to be one of 
my discoveries in Berlin that the concert is only 
a tributary to the larder, a kind of agreeable 



HINTS FROM GERMANY. I9 

second fiddle, if I may say so, to the more sub- 
stantial eating and drinking, and that without 
these we should, in all probability, go with very 
little music. So that we must wait in America till 
our people become Teutonized enough to want to 
tickle the palate and please the ear at the same 
time, before we can have the cheap garden con- 
certs that thQ Germans enjoy. Of course, I do 
not forget that our great hotels employ fine bands 
at our Newports and Saratogas, and that the 
people who lodge at the dollar houses are not shut 
out from these somewhat luxurious entertain- 
ments, which are paid for by the three and four- 
dollar-a-day guests ; yet this is only for a few 
weeks in a year, in a few of our larger watering- 
places. The English give us better models for 
our cheap entertainments than the Germans do, as 
will doubtless be made plain in one of the other 
chapters of this book. 

But viewed from a strictly German stand-point, 
and it being remembered that it is the larder 
which mainly pays for the music, it must be said 
that a stranger who drops in at one of these inex- 
pensive concerts in Germany is filled with delight 
and admiration. They are much the same in all 
the larger towns and cities, although of course in 



20 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

such places as Berlin and Leipzig there is a much 
greater selection than in such towns as Weimar 
and Gotha. The Prussian capital is, perhaps, the 
most rich of any place in the world in musical 
entertainments, and all tastes can be consulted. 
During the recent winter which I passed in that 
city, there were three concerts daily in large and 
agreeable halls, where one could take some light 
refreshments at a cost of ten or fifteen cents, or 
even less if he wished to be particularly sparing, 
or a great deal more if he wished to have such a 
supper as he would very likely have enjoyed at his 
boarding-place or at a restaurant, and where the 
cost of admission would be in the neighborhood of 
fifteen or twenty cents. At each one of these 
there would be one evening in the week set apart 
for solid music — symphonies and the like ; the 
others would be devoted to that style which is 
generally played on the piazzas of our Saratoga 
and Newport hotels. Below these there are large 
numbers of really cheap and poor concerts, where 
there is either no price for admission or a nominal 
one, such as three or five cents, but where it is 
evidently an open secret that the provisions sold 
cover nearly all the costs. I have looked enough 
into these to know that they must not be quoted 



HINTS FROM GERMANY. 11 

as any remarkable sign of a musical taste ; they 
only show that the Germans are so fond of har- 
monious noise that they can hardly eat or drink 
without it. But as concerts, these lower-grade 
performances are not worth our importation or 
imitation. 

When we ascend to a higher level than those 
garden or table concerts of which I have spoken 
above, we find that Mr. Thomas with his fine Ger- 
man band in New York, and other leaders in other 
cities, give us the same results that we reach in 
Germany, at about the same prices. To attend a 
really good concert in such a city as Berlin or 
Leipzig costs, if one has a comfortable, well-placed 
seat, seventy-five cents, a dollar, or a dollar and a 
quarter. But there is this comfort, — or discom- 
fort, — that there is ample room for those who are 
able and willing to stand, to hear the same music 
for a quarter of a dollar ; and there is seldom a fine 
concert given in the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, 
where there are not multitudes of these patient 
sufferers in the cause of art. 

And to this may be added that it is usual to 
offer the opportunity to hear the concert at the 
" public rehearsal," at a low rate, often at not more 
than a quarter of a dollar ; but this, as will be seen 



22 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

at once, will suggest to every reader within fifty 
miles of Boston that this is exactly what has been 
done for years in our American musical capital. 

To those who like opera, of course it is indisput- 
able that it may be enjoyed in the smaller German 
towns at rates at present impossible to us, save as 
our traveling companies bring us the few lighter 
works which come within their range ; but all this 
may very likely be changed with us, as our new 
American school gains in scope and wins its right 
to be. 

That in which I think the Germans do give us 
lessons is in the free use of their churches for con- 
certs of a high character, wherein not alone pieces 
strictly religious are given, but those of a certain 
degree of dignity and worth are welcomed, even if 
not at all ecclesiastical. The Germans are nice to 
a degree in the decorous use of their churches ; but 
they freely admit concerts to them, in the smallest 
villages and in the largest cities. And in my last 
Berlin winter, hardly a week went by without the 
opportunity of attending more than one concert in 
the churches, and many a pleasant evening did I 
pass in this way. The usual price of tickets was 
a mark (twenty-five cents) ; and while perfect deco- 
rum was always observed, and applause was con- 



HINTS FROM GERMANY. 23 

sidered as out of keeping with the place, yet 
brilliant violin solos and organ solos and pretty 
songs of sentiment were always allowed. Some- 
times whole oratorios and cantatas were given by 
local choirs, assisted by singers and players of 
some eminence ; and organ concerts were of course 
very common. 

All the signs look towards a time when the 
Americans are to be recognized as a distinctly 
musical people, perhaps the most sensitively organ- 
ized of all the nations in matters of taste and true 
feeling. We have not yet produced any composer 
of the first rank, nor indeed has England, nor 
France ; in fact, what nation but Germany has ? 
But if one may judge of the universal diffusion of 
costly instruments of music, such as the piano or 
organ, and the general use of them by all classes 
of society, it may be inferred that the love of 
music is one of our strongest points. 

And the end is not yet ; in fact, the movement 
has hardly begun. That senseless craze has 
indeed well-nigh run out, which compelled all our 
daughters, even those without a show of musical 
taste, to " practise " laboriously hour after hour 
on the piano, and ignore the special aptitude 
which our bountiful Father may have conferred 



24 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

upon them ; but year after year the numbers swell 
of those who seek, of their own will, to become 
proficient in the " divine art." And with this 
advance, of course, will come the wise and thought- 
ful providing of such public entertainments as can 
only build up a community in taste and true cul- 
ture, and add a reasonable charm to the leisure 
which all will seek and will have. 



CHAPTER III. 
WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. 

By Rev. SMITH BAKER. 

A LL forms of human life have their moral 
■**• dangers, and each situation its own peculiar 
peril. Men wax eloquent concerning the vices of 
intemperance and impurity, as though they were 
the only monsters of temptation over which men 
stumble and fall. They are great enough, with 
their immeasurable woes beyond the power of all 
human expression, but they are not confined or 
peculiar to any one class of society. 

Intemperance is spoken of as the special vice of 
the poor, but there is as a large proportion of the 
sons of wealth who go the ways of the drunkard 
as of the children of poverty. The higher you go 
in social life the more you find the signs of the 
secret, deadening sin of impurity. There are, 
however, two circumstances which increase the 
perils of working people from the temptations of 
intemperance and its companion vice. 

I. Is the fact of komelessness. 



26 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

The most lonesome place in the world is a great 
city, where one meets multitudes of people with- 
out a familiar face, and even after acquaintances 
have been formed there is no home-life, with its 
comforts, pleasures, restraints, warnings, and sym- 
pathies. A young man comes from his country 
home with its fireside freedom, its large rooms, its 
bountiful air, and its neighborly friendships, to 
seek a fortune or earn an honest living in one of 
New England's large manufacturing cities. He is 
neither immoral nor religious, but honest, social, 
and ignorant of the ways of life. He finds em- 
ployment in some mill or shop, and secures lodging 
and food in a corporation boarding-house. He 
carries his trunk up three flights of stairs into a 
room twelve by fourteen, which, with its plain 
walls and plainer furniture, without fire-place or 
stove, is his substitute for home. He works ten 
long hours in the mill, washes himself, eats his 
supper, and sits down to rest, but not for long. 
He is not used to such a pen ; he is too tired and 
restless to read for three hours before bed-time ; 
he is lonesome, and is not wanted in the family 
down-stairs. If there is any of the fire of a man 
in him he will go out. You can not thus cage a 
New England boy. He must go somewhere. 



WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. 2J 

He must let off the pent-up, boiling social life 
within him. Where shall he go ? He goes out 
upon the street. There is not a family in all 
the city with which he is acquainted. He passes 
by stores, long lines of them, but they are not 
for social purposes, as they are in the country. 
He passes by churches, but their doors are closed, 
with the exception of one evening each week for 
a prayer-meeting, and he is not religious. Where 
shall he go ? The theater and the saloon open wide 
their doors. He has all the natural impulses of a 
healthy young man for society, recreation, and fun. 
He is homesick, he must go somewhere, and he is 
shut up, either to return to his den of a sleeping- 
room or go to the theater or saloon. He enters the 
latter, with no evil intention, but simply to quench 
his lonesomeness and because he has nowhere else 
to go. These places are always open, always cheer- 
ful with free games, and full of social life. They 
take the place of home, and repeat the old invita- 
tion of the spider to the fly. Thus thousands of 
honest, well-intending young men are drawn into 
the paths of pleasure and down into the ways of 
sin from homelessness. Only he who has stood a 
stranger upon the streets of a large city in an 
autumn evening knows how strong this tempta- 
tion is. 



23 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

There are also thousands of young men in our 
cities who have worse than no home — mere places 
where their parents stay, without cheerfulness or 
refinement, or any restraining or elevating influ- 
ence — simply human dens, compared with which 
the saloon is a palace. If the saloon and theater 
tempt young men from homes of culture and re- 
ligion, how much more the sons of poverty and neg- 
lect ! Thousands of well-meaning youth, homeless, 
or worse than homeless, walk the streets of -our 
cities after their day's toil, with no place for rest or 
recreation or social enjoyment but such as Satan 
opens. It is worse than senseless, it is cruel mock- 
ery, for people to say they should spend their even- 
ings in the higher pleasures of literature, science, 
and art. Hard-working young men and young 
women can not do that. It is contrary to nature. 
They ought not to do it, and if they have a well-bal- 
anced nature they will not. Social recreation and 
fun are a healthy demand of youth after a hard day's 
work, as much as light and food and rest. It is 
easy enough for those who have comfortable 
homes, with books, pictures, and music, with the 
cheerful society of loved ones, to express their 
astonishment at the waywardness of homeless 
young people ; but put your son in their place and 



WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. 29 

notice in what a different light all this would 
seem. The wonder is that so few of them go to 
the bad. With from two to fifty theaters and 
from one hundred to three thousand saloons in 
each of our cities, enticing young people into 
pleasure and then into sin, taking advantage of 
their social, but lonesome, tired, nervous hours, it 
is an astonishment that so many of them come 
into manhood unwrecked. What is the Church 
doing to antidote these temptations and meet 
these demands ? She preaches the gospel on 
Sunday to such as have personal interest enough 
to attend and hire a seat. She holds one prayer- 
meeting a week for such as are religious enough 
to attend it. In some of our cities she has one 
Young Men's Christian Association, with rooms 
so poorly furnished as to repel an intelligent, ear- 
nest nature. The Church has thus far done 
almost nothing for the social life of the homeless 
young people in our cities. The time has come 
for her to mother them and open her arms, not 
only on Sundays, but constantly, furnishing them 
with a healthy, cheerful, restraining, and educat- 
ing place of resort. The Church in all our 
cities is to do for the homeless young people 
in their midst what every Christian father and 



30 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

mother would have some good man do for their 
absent son in like circumstances — throw around 
them the inspirations of social Christianity. When 
we simply denounce the theater and the saloon, 
young people look us in the face and ask : " Where 
shall we go ? " The Church must answer the 
question. Private Christians can do much in this 
direction. We know one good woman who was in 
the habit each year for thirty years of inviting 
some one homeless young man to tea at her house 
every Tuesday evening for the year, and asking 
him to make a kind of temporary mother of her, 
and her testimony was that none of them had be- 
come drunkards or lost their good name in society. 
This thought rises in importance because a ma- 
jority of our future voters, business men, and 
public officers are now the poor, self-dependent, 
hard-working young people of our land. The 
Church must mother them or Satan will. 

II. The other temptation, which comes a little 
later in life to working people, is that of dis- 
couragement. 

A young man receiving small wages dreams of 
marriage and a home of his own, but such a mar- 
riage as he desires and such a home as he wants 
are beyond his means, at least so he thinks. 



WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. $t 

False ideas of life, — the senseless display of peo- 
ple in their homes, — a pride which keeps him 
from asking a sensible young woman to share his 
poverty or limited fortune with him, tempts him 
to neglect God's appointed way and exposes him 
to all the temptations of a hopeless single life. 
This is one of the most fearful and important 
social questions of the hour : How our young 
people can be taught to begin life together, as 
the most of our parents did, in honest, pure, 
brave, cheerful poverty, at the foot of the ladder, 
and work their way up together, living poorly until 
they are able to live better. This foolish " scare- 
crow " is one of the greatest temptations to an 
, indolent, and hence an immoral, life. We should 
teach young people that a poor, honest, hard-work- 
ing, loving home is better than a selfish and in- 
dulgent singleness — that the deepest happiness 
of life is in the loving union of two hearts in 
poverty as well as in affluence, and that there are 
as many happy homes with as deep, sweet joy, 
having only two rooms, as there are in mansions 
of wealth — that the joy of life is in pure, trust- 
ing, burden-bearing Christian love. 

But frequently the discouragement increases 
after marriage. The husband's wages are small — 



32 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

only $i, or $1.25, or $1.50 per day; the wife's 
health is poor ; one, three, or more children are 
given to them, and all hope of ever owning a home 
of their own fades away. How to obtain food and 
clothing, pay rent, and meet the doctor's bills, with- 
out obtaining even the cheapest seat in a church, 
becomes the struggle of life. How to live ? that 's 
the question. Then there comes, once a year, " a 
cut down " of from five to. ten cents per day (and 
the worst of it is, the "cut down" is confined to 
those of least pay). The man's courage fails. He 
needs not only a naturally cheerful heart, but a 
cheerful wife and the grace of God, in addition, 
not to lose his pluck. But if he has not, by 
nature, a disposition to look upon the bright side 
of dark things ; if he has not the grace of God to 
help him, and if his wife is nervous, dissatisfied, 
complaining, and negligent, as a housekeeper, so 
that his little apology for a home is made miser- 
able, then the temptation to discouragement rolls 
about his heart mountain high, and the evil spirit 
says : " Why have life ground out in this way ? 
Why not go where there is some pleasure ? " The 
saloon, with its jolly companionship, seems to 
answer the question, and becomes a deceptive 
lump of sugar in the bitter cup of life. It is easy 



WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. 33 

enough for those who have affectionate, cheerful, 
abundant homes to call such men " fools.'' On 
the other hand, we wonder more of them do not 
go out and down. The majority of those who 
form intemperate habits after marriage are led to 
it by unhappy homes and discouragement. Social 
and financial hopes go out, and they seek in the 
pleasures of sin to cover up the miseries of a bur- 
dened life. Among the noblest heroes in the world 
are a class of men who, with small wages and no 
prospect of more, and with a fretful home, keep up 
a brave heart, making the best of every thing and 
maintaining the uprightness of their character 
and their faith in God. Heroic souls, whom the 
Church should honor ! They live a life-long slavery. 
What is the duty of the Church ? It should 
recognize them socially — take particular pains to 
give them the hopes, the joys, the sympathies of 
Christian faith and fellowship. It should be to 
them brother and sister, holding them from the 
burdens of their discouragements. The tempted 
laboring-man should feel there is one place where 
warm hearts and hands will greet him and words 
and prayers and hope be given him, and that one 
place the Church, representing his Elder Brother. 
How can this be done ? Not in any one way, 



34 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

but by the combination of all ways. There should 
be such a social atmosphere at all church meetings 
as shall cause each one to feel at home, that he is 
welcomed and wanted. There should be " a going- 
out-of-one's-way " attention to the young and the 
poor — a special pains to greet them. It is human 
nature to like to be noticed. The man who calls 
the social work of the Church superficial is gener- 
ally the very one who most complains when others 
do not speak to him. There should be church 
sociables to which all members of the congrega- 
tion are invited, and at which all the older mem- 
bers of the church should be a reception committee 
to greet those who come, and at which both 
refreshments and entertainments shall be provided, 
showing how Christian people have innocent 
recreations without the peril or expense of that 
which is sinful. The maternal association should 
reach the mothers of laboring families upon the 
common ground of maternity and thus cause them 
to feel there is something helpful and practical in 
the gospel of Christ. The infant department of 
the Sunday-school is not to be simply a flower- 
garden of the best families of the church, but a 
conservatory into which all the little ones from all 
kinds of families are to be gathered and given the 



WORKING PEOPLE AND CITY-LIFE. 35 

best the church has for them. Not mission-schools, 
when it can be avoided, but the church school ; 
and then the poor man will feel his children are 
not religious paupers, but are honored as the 
richest man's children are honored, and they will 
grow up having a church home. When you honor 
a man's child you honor him. Men of the church 
are to personally invite non church-going men to 
the house of God and into their own pews ; extend 
the courtesies of religion with true Christian 
eagerness. The sexton and ushers of the church 
should be men of warm-hearted politeness, so that 
the stranger and the poor man will be quite surprised 
at the welcome he receives. Committees of visita- 
tion should be appointed in every church, who 
shall solicit the attendance of those who have no 
church home. Every pastor and his church 
should feel that all the people in any community 
who do not attend any other church service 
belong to their parish. Particular attention should 
be given to outsiders who are sick ; a little sym- 
pathy at such a time is worth a dozen formal calls. 
Churches in cities should open and sustain 
reading-rooms and such like places, to which those 
who have not pleasant homes may resort, so that 
the excuse may be taken from any for going into 



36 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

doubtful or evil associations. Entertaining and 
instructive lectures upon popular themes should 
be provided. The gospel-net is to be spread in 
all directions. The Church is to turn itself into a 
bee-hive of outreaching work and thus gather them 
in one by one from a life of sin into the kingdom 
of God. Not in one way but in all ways, let the 
world see that our religion is faith in God, and 
that this faith in God causes us to overflow with 
love to men. If we are to save working-men from 
their own sins and from the vices and infidelity of 
our age, we must not simply build churches and 
hire preachers to proclaim from the pulpit, " Come 
here or be lost," but the whole Church must go 
out after men. It must be a hand-to-hand 
work. The Church must also demand that capital 
be just and that fair pay be given for fair work. 
The Church is to teach the laboring-man the duty 
and honor of good, honest work — the best work 
possible ; and it is also to teach capital the duty 
and honor of good pay — the best pay possible ; 
then will capital respect the Church as not a slave 
to its power, and then will laboring-men believe 
in the Church because of its Christ-like sympathy, 
and we shall begin to work out the Christian prob- 
lem of the relation of man to man, as well as the 
relation of man to God, 



CHAPTER IV. 

AN EXPERIENCE WITH OUTSIDERS. 

By Rev. REUEN THOMAS, PH.D. 

PT. PAUL has left it on record that he became 
^ all things to all men, that by all means he 
might save some ; and that he did all things 
"for the gospel's sake" (i Cor. 9 : 23). In these 
words he suggests to us a wise adaptability to men 
and circumstances ; but that this wise adaptability 
is to be controlled by the highest aim which can 
present itself to the mind of man. To the Jew he 
became as a Jew that he might gain Jews ; to 
them that are under the law, as under the law, 
that he might gain them that are under the law ; 
to them that are without law, as without law, not 
being without law to God, but under law to 
Christ, that he might gain them that are without 
law. To the weak he became weak, that he 
might gain the weak. 

Evidently he regarded the truth which had been 
presented to him in the incarnate form of Jesus 
Christ as belonging to all men. He aimed to 



38 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

bring that truth to bear upon men in all condi- 
tions. His versatility must have been wonderful. 
His ability of adaptation must have amounted to 
genius. How can I get the confidence of these 
commercial Corinthians ? of these philosophical 
Athenians ? of these ritualistic Ephesians ? must 
have been his constantly asked question. And 
how can I get the confidence of the unlearned as 
well as the learned ? of the poor as well as the 
rich ? How can I best illustrate the catholicity 
and humanity of the truth as it is in Jesus ? 

The greatest men have no sectionalisms. They 
aim not to perpetuate peculiarities, but to purify 
and elevate humanity. Our church-work may be 
done by methods which, to certain minds, regard- 
ing only superficialities, seem foreign. Every 
thing which starts thought in the minds of the 
thoughtless, every thing which tends to educate 
them into higher and purer perceptions of things, 
is so much to the good. When the Rev. F. W. 
Robertson lectured on Wordsworth, and on poetry 
generally, to the working-classes of Brighton, he 
was as really aiming to extend the kingdom of 
our Lord as when he preached his stirring ser- 
mons in Trinity Chapel. Many religious people 
thoughtlessly raised the cry of socialism, but if 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH OUTSIDERS. 39 

only they had thought more deeply ana carefully, 
no such absurd cry could ever have escaped them. 
There is a Christian socialism which Robertson 
recognized, and which all students of the New 
Testament must acknowledge, as inevitable. We 
need not be afraid of destructive forms of social- 
ism except in the absence of that true Christian 
socialism which arises out of the recognition of 
the brotherhood of redeemed man in Christ. 

The question whether our churches would not 
do their work more thoroughly and generally by 
adding to the established methods of promoting 
Christian life other agencies of an educational 
character, is one that has often been debated. I 
have been asked to write a little of my own ex- 
perience. It belongs to another country and, on 
that account, may not be of equal value with 
other essays contributed to this volume. But 
such as it is I give it. 

In a homogeneous population like that of Eng- 
land, the opportunity is more favorable for influ- 
encing the minds of the men technically belonging 
to the " working-classes " than it can be in our 
American cities. All nationalities are here, and 
they bring with them, of necessity, the ideas and 
prejudices in which they have been nurtured. 



40 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

Under these conditions, if a speaker is to com- 
mand the sympathy of his hearers he has to think 
very carefully before he speaks. Moreover, his 
choice of topics is necessarily limited. Foreigners 
dwelling in another country than their own are 
very sensitive when remarks are made upon the 
land of their nativity. The lecturer has thus to 
pick his way carefully among the facts of history. 
It is very difficult to lecture on Queen Mary be- 
fore an audience in which there may be Roman 
Catholics. It is equally difficult to speak on Na- 
poleon III and the general influence of Napoleon- 
ism in France before an audience some of whom 
may be ardently and passionately French. And 
yet neutral facts in history are not sufficiently 
interesting to excite and sustain that kind of 
attention which ought to be given to a speaker. 
I have realized more than once how difficult it is 
to address audiences in this country when any 
element of controversy comes in which involves 
national peculiarities and national antipathies. 

When I removed from Liverpool to London, I 
had in my mind the purpose of trying to win con- 
trol over the sympathies of the classes who are 
open more than others to the influence of the 
demagogue and the infidel social lecturer. It was 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH OUTSIDERS. 41 

understood that I was to have my church on a 
week-day for that effort. For one six months, 
from October to March, I held an additional ser- 
vice on Sunday afternoon, preaching to the ordi- 
nary congregation morning and evening. I called 
the discourse a lecture, and gave it some title 
which would attract attention. About six hundred 
of the right kind of people assembled. This first 
year served to establish the lecture and make of it 
an institution of the place. The second year I 
appropriated Monday night to this effort. The 
first night I had about six hundred people, most 
of them the hearers from last year. The second 
night I announced that I would speak on Napo- 
leon III and his influence on France. About 
twelve hundred people came. On each Monday 
evening between October and March I had my 
church full, and it continued full for six years, 
sometimes so crowded that there would be two 
thousand, and twenty-two hundred, people in a 
building seating about eighteen hundred — the 
aisles every-where and the double galleries all 
jammed full of people. I admitted the people " with- 
out money and without price," and held boxes at 
the doors, as they retired, to receive such voluntary 
pennies as they chose to deposit, simply to pay ex- 



42 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

penses. I was not willing that the regular church 
congregation should bear any cost for these meet- 
ings, which were peculiarly mine. Of course the 
building, being so constantly used, was considera- 
bly tarnished and needed extra care ; but the 
orderliness of the audiences was such that we had 
no fault to find, and though I spoke on the most 
debatable themes and tried to lift them up into 
the light of Christian truth and test them as to 
their goodness or badness by that, yet on no occa- 
sion,- except one, was there any discord or dissent. 
Once two Irishmen were heard to threaten that 
they would cry "fire," and by creating a panic 
discredit the lectures. My offence was a reference 
to the Pope. They were overheard ; the matter 
was reported to me, and I reported it to the audi- 
ence. If there had been a fire after that no one 
would have dared to announce it. I have won- 
dered at my freedom from interruption, as the 
most exciting social themes were introduced and 
discussed freely. From that day to this I have 
believed in efforts to attract and educate the minds 
of the people generally. Ihave believed in them, 
not because of the crowded audiences which for 
seven consecutive years came to my lectures, but 
specially because of the religious results. 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH OUTSIDERS. 43 

There were very large additions to my church 
during those years, and half of them came from 
the ranks of those who had first got higher ideas of 
life at the Monday-evening lectures. These soon 
crowded the Sunday-evening services, and we 
seemed to be in a condition of revival all the time. 
I do not remember a single church communion — 
and our communions were held monthly — at 
which members were not admitted to fellowship 
"on confession of faith in Christ." The highest 
number admitted was at one January communion, 
when of about seventy persons thirty-five were 
"Monday-evening people;" that is, persons who 
had been first attracted by our " secular" lectures. 

While a similar effort to this might not be possi- 
ble except in similar conditions, yet I am per- 
suaded that great good would result, especially in 
our manufacturing cities, from lectures interspersed 
with an occasional concert of sacred music ; but I 
would rather hear a little good organ-playing and 
a very little singing as an addition to the lecture, 
or elocutionary reading, than deal too much in 
concerts. Concerts are simply entertainments. 
Seldom have they any ethical purpose or aim. In 
all benevolent efforts of the kind I suggest, the 
aim to raise the intelligence and purify the heart 



44 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

must be steadily kept in view. Whenever that is 
lost sight of, or subordinated, the influence seems 
to depart. Entertainment must be second, eleva- 
tion first. If at the end of a series of such enter- 
tainments your audiences are not a little more 
Christian, a little nearer to the kingdom of heaven 
than at the beginning ; if they have not had the 
dormant nobility in them aroused and the mean- 
ness rebuked, then you have lost your opportunity. 
Mere instruction is not enough ; it must be 
instruction with a view to enlightenment, and the 
creation of sympathy with fhat which is worthy of 
the sympathy of a good man. Many of our Sun- 
day-school concerts are mere entertainments with 
a spice of goody-ness to flavor them up to the ortho- 
dox idea, but they have no high and definite aim. 
It is the aim in every thing which sanctifies or 
debases the thing. Men need political education 
and education in social economics ; they need to 
have an appetite created for the purest and noblest 
forms of literature, and these occasions to which 
I refer furnish opportunities for speaking on 
themes which can not be treated as freely and as 
effectively, if at all, in the pulpit. That such 
efforts need wisdom and judgment I do not deny. 
Mr. Dryasdust will offer his help, and you will be 



AN EXPERIENCE WITH OUTSIDERS. 45 

disposed to give him a chance, but you will kill 
your opportunity if you have not the courage to 
say "No" to all such offers of service. More- 
over, it must be evident in all these attempts, if 
they are to be successful, that you are not after 
making money, even for the worthiest objects, 
but simply aiming at the elevation of the people. 
It is much better to make a charge on people for 
exit than for entrance. A collection at the doors 

— every one asked to give a little to pay expenses 

— is always a more certain source of income than 
to compel people to buy tickets. In my enter- 
prise in London there was no single year when 
I had not a large sum in excess of expenses. 

The Church has to become more varied in her 
methods if she is to control — as she has a divine 
right to do ("ye are the light of the world") — 
the life of the people. The people are God's for 
this life and for this world as well as for eternity. 
The question, How shall we rescue the great 
people from these low, mean ideas of life ; from 
low, yet socially allowed principles and influences ? 
is one of the most pressing of our time. The men 
who can give any intelligent answer, especially 
any answer founded on experience, ought to find 
auditors every-where. 



CHAPTER V. 

PRACTICAL EDUCATION AND ENTER- 
TAINMENT FOR THE PEOPLE. 

By C. E. BOLTON. 

r I ^HAT the world, tired with its struggle for 
■*• daily bread, needs and must have amuse- 
ments is evident to all. That the world can be 
led to prefer elevating amusements to those low 
or common must be equally evident. Cheap 
theaters and museums are opened on every hand 
to make money. Are Christian people working 
with the same energy to make good citizens ? 

The tendency of the age is toward education, 
and our amusements should be in harmony with 
this aim. London publishes millions of penny 
books for her people : penny biographies of lead- 
ing men and women to teach patriotism and 
honor; penny histories, penny astronomies, arith- 
metics, and dictionaries. 

When Lady Brassey's " Voyage of the Sun- 
beam " was brought out at twelve cents a volume, 
one hundred thousand copies were soon sold. 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 47 

When, with Sir Thomas Brassey as president, we 
find seventy-five thousand men belonging to the 
" Working-men's Club and Institute Union " in 
London, associated for " mutual improvement by 
lectures, libraries, and recreation," we have a 
glimpse of William Morris's " Earthly Paradise 
that is to be " : — 

"Then a man shall work and bethink him, and rejoice in 

the deeds of his hand, 
Nor yet come home in the even too faint and weary to stand. 

Men in that time a-coming shall work and have no fear 
For to-morrow^ lack of earning and the hunger-wolf a-near. 

Oh, strange, new, wonderful justice ! But for whom shall 

we gather the gain ? 
For ourselves and for each of our fellows, and no hand shall 

labor in vain." 

London's three large colleges for working-men 
and women are doing incalculable good. When 
Maurice, the friend of Tennyson and Ruskin, 
opened his college, the world said : " There is no 
use in this. Working-men prefer the public house." 
But Maurice, with his great heart, said : " Give 
them a chance and see if they will not come ; " 
and now in the institution which he founded, 
eight hundred blacksmiths, carpenters, and day- 
laborers are studying French, Greek, science, and 



48 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

political economy, together with the common 
branches. The working-men's clubs of New York, 
Boston, and Philadelphia are steps in the right 
direction. 

Night-schools all over the country (and they 
should be free of charge to the child of eight as 
to the man of eighty) will go a long way in solving 
our socialistic problems. When people spend two 
hours of each night in study, there is little time or 
desire for saloons or questionable amusements. 
When a few more men, like Enoch Pratt, of Balti- 
more, give a million dollars to found free public 
libraries in each of our cities, we shall have fur* 
nished the best kind of "educational amusement " 
to our people. 

Capitalists on both sides of the water are 
making this a practical matter. In the large 
engineering works of Messrs. Tangye (Birming- 
ham, England), where two thousand men are em- 
ployed, when they gather at dinner a twenty 
minutes' talk is given by prominent persons twice 
a week. The men often suggest the topic, either 
some political or general subject. Of course it 
costs the Tangyes something to help make their 
men intelligent, but it pays in their increased 
devotion to their work. How many strikes would 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 49 

be avoided if every large firm in this country 
thought enough of its employees to give them, 
twice a week, bright, crisp talks on the battles of 
our Civil War, the care of the body, or a racy 
sketch of some noble man or woman ! The 
Tangyes also provide a library and have evening 
classes. Several firms in England have purchased 
stereopticons and provide illustrated lectures for 
the families of their workmen, that these, who can 
travel rarely, may understand other countries than 
their own. Thus their minds are broadened and 
they are made happier. 

The firm of P. Lorillard & Company, Jersey 
City, has done an admirable thing in giving to its 
four thousand working people a library with ten 
thousand volumes, a large reading - room with 
several hundred chairs, twenty - five tables for 
various games, and one hundred newspapers and 
periodicals, with free pens, ink, paper, and en- 
velopes. What need to go to a saloon when 
warm, cheerful recreation and reading-rooms are 
provided ? 

Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh millionaire 
author, has recently purchased a library building 
worth $30,000 for his workmen, and given a hand- 
some sum to provide the necessary books. Some 



50 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

of the large cotton-mills and rolling-mills of the 
country have done the same good work. 

Warner Brothers, corset manufacturers, have 
commenced the erection of a building in Bridge- 
port, Connecticut, to cost $35,000, for the free 
use of the one thousand girls employed in their 
factory. The building will be about seventy feet 
square and three stories high. The first story 
will be devoted to a restaurant, where good meals 
will be furnished at cost. The second story will 
contain a large reading-room and library, conver- 
sation-room, music-room, bath-rooms, and lavatory. 
The third story will contain a large hall, seating 
six hundred, a small hall, seating one hundred and 
fifty, and class-rooms, where evening classes in 
singing, penmanship, drawing, book-keeping, fancy 
needle-work, etc., will be taught. 

Concerning the experiment made in Cleveland, 
Ohio, for the educational amusement of the peo- 
ple, the Educational Bureau, Rev. Washington 
Gladden, d.d., has written so ably and clearly in 
The Century Magazine for January, 1885, that I 
will quote his words : — 

" The duty of the Church with respect to 
popular amusements is not done when it has lifted 
up its warning against the abuses that grow out of 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 5 I 

them and laid down its laws of temperance and 
moderation in their use. It has a positive func- 
tion to fulfill in furnishing diversions that shall be 
attractive and, at the same time, pure and whole- 
some. This can not be done, as we have seen, by 
the churches, as churches, but it can be done by 
men and women into whom they breathe their 
spirit and whom they fill with their intelligence 
and good-will. 

"When I say that it can be done, I speak of 
what I know, and testify of what I have seen. 
The most remarkable success in the way of popu- 
lar entertainment that I have ever witnessed has 
been achieved along the line which I have just 
been pointing out. And, inasmuch as an ounce of 
experience is worth a pound of theory, I can do 
no better than to tell the story of one successful 
experiment in this field. 

" The Cleveland Educational Bureau has closed 
its third season and issued its annual report. 
This enterprise owes its existence and its suc- 
cess to many men and women of good-will who 
have heartily cooperated in sustaining it, but 
chiefly to the ingenuity and enthusiasm of Mr. 
Charles E. Bolton, its secretary and manager, to 
the literary skill and facility of Mrs. Sarah K. 



52 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

Bolton, his wife, and to the liberality of Mr. W. H. 
Doane, the treasurer, who owns and rents to the 
bureau for a nominal price the People's Taber- 
nacle, in which its work is done. The plan of 
operations is varied slightly from year to year, but 
the general design can be clearly indicated. 

" The ' People's Tabernacle ' is a plain but capa- 
cious assembly-room, built on leased land, and 
devoted to educational and religious purposes ; it 
boasts few decorations and not much upholstery ; 
but it is clean and well-ventilated, and brilliantly 
lighted by electricity. A gallery runs around the 
hall, and the platform is pushed forward so near 
the center that the audience of four thousand or 
forty-five hundred hears a distinct speaker without 
difficulty. The platform is usually covered with 
a profusion of potted plants ; and handsome 
bouquets of cut flowers in baskets and vases wait 
to be bestowed upon the performers at the end of 
the entertainment. 

" The manager describes his evening's pro- 
gram as furnishing a ' fourfold intellectual 
treat.' Very little is said about diversion in 
connection with this enterprise ; it is not called 
a bureau of amusement : it is an educational 
bureau. The appeal is wisely addressed to a 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 53 

higher principle than the mere craving for diver- 
sion ; and the recreation is incidental and second- 
ary, as it ought always to be. If the bureau 
announced itself as a purveyor of amusement, it 
would not amuse the people half so successfully 
as it does. The play has a better relish when it is 
brought in as the sauce of a more solid, intellect- 
ual repast. It is high compliment to the working 
people of Cleveland that is paid by the managers 
in the invitation to devote ten of their Saturday 
evenings, every winter, to the exercises of an 
educational bureau. The magnificent success of 
the entertainment shows how well the compliment 
is deserved. 

" The ' fourfold intellectual treat ' begins usually 
at a quarter before seven with an excellent orches- 
tral concert. During this time the audience is 
assembling, and by seven o'clock the building is 
packed to the walls. No reserved seats are sold ; 
the motto is: 'First come, first served/ Early 
comers are not even allowed to reserve seats for 
their friends. A large force of neatly dressed 
ushers assists in seating the audience. No single 
tickets are sold before a quarter past seven ; sea- 
son-ticket holders have the exclusive right to the 
house up to that time. 



54 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

"The orchestral concert ends with a grand 
chorus by the entire audience, which rises and 
joins, under the lead of a precentor, with the 
orchestra, the organ, and a trained choir, in sing- 
ing one of the national hymns. 

" Following this, at precisely a quarter past 
seven, is the ' lecture-prelude/ which is generally 
an off-hand address of half an hour on some scien- 
tific or practical subject. Among the topics 
treated in these lecture-preludes, I find these : 
'The Pyramids/ ' Architecture Illustrated/ 'Won- 
ders of the House we Live In/ 'Microscopic 
Objects Magnified/ 'The Terminal Glacier' (illus- 
trated), 'Wrongs of Working-men and How to 
right them.' Next is a 'singing-school/ in which 
a vigorous precentor, aided by the orchestra and 
the choir, leads the great congregation for ten or 
fifteen minutes in singing national hymns. The 
precentor drills them finely, singing-master fashion ; 
he tells them how he wants the piece sung and 
gets them to sing it as he wishes ; he divides them 
into choirs and makes them sing antiphonally ; 
they have the words and music in their hands and 
are able to join, as most of them do, heartily in 
the great chorus. 

"After this comes the principal attraction of 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 5$ 

the evening, in the shape of a popular lecture, dra- 
matic reading, debate, or concert, which begins at 
eight o'clock precisely and always closes promptly 
at half-past nine. Mr. Bolton himself has con- 
tributed several lectures of travel, finely illustrated 
with the stereopticon. A debate on Protection 
versus Free Trade, between Professor W. G. Sum- 
ner and Professor Van Buren Denslow, filled one 
evening last winter, and aroused the deepest inter- 
est. Another debate between Mrs. Livermore and 
Professor Denslow, on the question whether women 
ought to vote, closed the recent course with great 
eclat. It is safe for the manager to promise any 
speaker who has something worth saying a cordial 
and appreciative hearing. 

" During the last season, five illustrated lectures 
on the art of cooking were delivered by Miss Juliet 
Corson to an average audience of three thousand 
women. These lectures were free to the holders 
of season tickets ; the admission fee to those not 
members of the bureau was fifteen cents, or fifty 
cents for the course. It is difficult to understand 
how Miss Corson could make herself intelligible to 
so large an audience, but we learn that her lectures 
were very successful, and that they were received 
with great enthusiasm. ' Whole carcases of ani- 



56 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

mals/ says the report, 'were cut into suitable pieces 
on the platform, and all kinds of plain cooking 
were done.' 

" The bureau also furnished during the summer 
ten open-air, evening concerts on the public square, 
which were enjoyed by many thousands of people. 

" Another important feature of the work is the 
circulation of useful literature. Each person who 
attends the winter's entertainments receives on 
every evening a little book in paper covers, printed 
by the bureau for its members. Four thousand of 
these little books — a whole wagon-load — are dis- 
tributed every evening. They are continuously 
paged, and the advertisements upon the fly-leaves 
can be removed for binding. At the close of the 
course a Cleveland binder puts the series of ten 
pamphlets into neat red muslin covers, for thirty- 
five cents. Each pamphlet contains about forty 
pages and is devoted to the popularization of 
science, or to some sort of useful information. The 
series for 1882-83 includes a ' Short History of 
Modern France ; ' a ' Brief History of Science ; ' a 
'Sketch of the History of the United States;' 
' The Story of the Steam-engine ; ' an excellent 
little archaeological essay on ' Early Man/ well 
illustrated ; a series of brief biographies of ' Great 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 57 

Artists ; ' a crisp and sensible essay on ' Secrets of 
Success ' ( of which twenty-five thousand extra 
copies were distributed), and other similar matter. 
Each pamphlet contains also the national hymns 
sung by the great chorus on the evening of its 
distribution, and the program for the evening. 

" For all this, how much are the patrons of the 
bureau required to pay ? The season ticket, which 
admits to the ten 'fourfold entertainments ' on 
successive Saturday evenings, comprising the ten 
orchestral concerts, the ten ' singing-schools/ the 
ten books, and the ten ' special attractions ' (pop- 
ular lecture, elocutionary readings, debate, or 
grand concert), costs for this year one dollar and a 
quarter, or twelve and a half cents for each even- 
ing. These tickets also admit to the course of 
lectures by Miss Corson, and from the proceeds of 
their sale the summer evening concerts are pro- 
vided. 

" In only one sense is the bureau a gratuity. A 
great amount of unrewarded labor is performed in 
its behalf by the ladies and gentlemen who are 
directly interested in its management ; and many 
of those who take part in its entertainments vol- 
unteer their services. The ' lecture-preludes ' are 
generally given by gentlemen of the city or the 



58 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

vicinity, who are glad to serve the bureau, and 
whose carefully prepared addresses have been highly 
appreciated by the audience. Most of the ' special 
attractions/ however, come from a distance and 
cost money. But the sale of more than four thou- 
sand season tickets pays the expenses of the bu- 
reau, and leaves a balance in the treasury at the 
close of every season. The people get a great deal 
for their money, but they have the satisfaction of 
knowing that they pay for what they get — all but 
the good-will and kindly effort on their behalf put 
forth by their employers and their neighbors, which 
money will not buy. 

" I have spoken of the audience as composed 
mainly of working-men and their families. Last 
year forty-one hundred season tickets were sold 
in the city of Cleveland. When the work was 
begun, Mr. Bolton visited all the great manufac- 
turing establishments, obtained permission from 
the managers to have the men collected ten min- 
utes before the time of starting, and then, in a 
brief speech, explained to them his plan. Tickets 
were placed on sale in the offices connected with 
the shops, the employers heartily cooperating. 
The interest of the mechanics was thus enlisted 
in the beginning, and although about four hundred 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 59 

school-teachers and a sprinkling of the dwellers on 
'Algonquin Avenue ' may be counted in the even- 
ing audiences, they still consist, for the most part, of 
working people and their families. Mr. Bolton says 
that many of the mechanics carry their suppers to 
their shops on Saturdays, that they may be early at 
the Tabernacle in the evening. Few signs of this 
are visible from the platform, however ; the audience 
seems to be clad in its Sunday clothes. It would 
be hard to find anywhere a company whose attire 
was neater, whose faces were brighter, whose be- 
havior was more decorous, or whose appreciation 
of wit or eloquence was keener. It was my great 
pleasure to look into the faces of these people for 
an hour and a half while two accomplished lady 
readers were entertaining them, and a more re- 
sponsive audience I have rarely seen. It was an 
exquisite pleasure to sit and watch their move- 
ments, to note the eagerness with which they hung 
upon the lips of these gifted women, and the relish 
with which they listened to the interpretation of 
the masterpieces of English poetry and humor 
recited to them, and to feel the surges of pure and 
strong emotion that swept over the throng and 
broke continually at my feet in a sympathetic 
sigh, or in happy and wholesome laughter. That 



6o FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

it is an extremely well-behaved audience will be 
understood when I say that it has abolished encores 
and the pandemoniac practice of stamping the feet, 
and — ecce sigmnn ! — that it keeps its seat 
respectfully until the performance is concluded. 

" It was impossible not to reflect that a large 
share of these thousands would, if it were not 
for this bureau, be spending their Saturday even- 
ings in such places of amusement as might be 
open to them, admission to which would cost them 
three or four times as much as they pay at the 
Tabernacle ; that the great majority of these would 
be places where their minds would be debauched 
and their morals damaged ; where they would find 
a temporary excitement, to be followed by disgust 
and ennui ; where they would receive no whole- 
some impulses and gain no new thoughts ; and 
where they would often have their prejudices 
roused and their hearts inflamed against their more 
prosperous neighbors ; for the cheap theater is 
one of the mouth-pieces of the communist and 
the pe'troleuse. Now they are brought together in 
this great assembly, that is itself an inspiration, 
and in its decorum, its self-restraint, and its good- 
nature, an incarnate gospel ; good music charms 
their ears ; a profusion of flowers on the platform 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 6 1 

delights their eyes ; they join in the national songs, 
and their best emotions are aroused ; they listen 
to the kindling words of poet or orator or teacher, 
and are instructed and quickened ; they rejoice in 
this ample and admirable supply of one of their 
deepest wants, and recognize the benevolence that 
has devised it, and their hearts are filled with a 
kindlier feeling toward all their fellow-men. They 
go home sober, with all their week's earnings in 
their pockets, and a little book to read in which 
they will find something to divert and enlighten 
them ; and they are much more likely to be 
found in church the next day than if they had 
spent the Saturday night in the beer-garden or at 
the variety-show. A free gospel service is held in 
the Tabernacle every Sunday afternoon, and the 
attendance upon this service has greatly increased 
since the Educational Bureau was organized. 

" I have thus endeavored to set down a plain 
account of what seems to me a most wise and 
noble Christian enterprise. A charity it is not, in 
the ordinary acceptation of that word, and it is all 
the more charitable because it is not a charity and 
because it pays its own expenses ; but it is one of 
those effective applications of Christianity to the 
social needs of men that we may expect to see be- 



62 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

coming more and more common in the future. It 
is doubtful whether any revival services held in 
Cleveland during the winter help so efficiently in 
the Christianization of the people as do the enter- 
tainments given at the Tabernacle. Applied Chris- 
tianity is what the world wants, and this is Chris- 
tianity applied to one of the great interests of 
human life. . . . 

" What has been done in Cleveland can be done 
in every city and large town in this country. 
The scheme may well be varied ; the application 
of the principle calls for ingenuity and practical 
sense ; methods that are successful in one city 
would need modification to fit them to the condi- 
tions of another ; but the purpose is easily under- 
stood, and the main idea can be realized with the 
expenditure of very little money, wherever there 
are men of good-will who will give to the enter- 
prise the necessary thought and care. It can not 
be done without work ; nothing important is 
accomplished without large expenditure of time 
and effort ; but it is work that brings in a large 
return. 

" Some of the conditions of success in such an 
enterprise may be readily named : — 

" i. A large and cheerful hall. That the prices 
may be low, the audience must be large. 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 63 

" 2. A capable manager. Enthusiasm, good 
temper, fertility of resources, and sympathy with 
the people are among his qualifications. 

" 3. Variety in the entertainment, with no 
hitches or wearying pauses between the parts. 
The movement must be swift and sure. 

" 4. Punctuality and business-like thoroughness 
in the management. Begin and end on the 
minute. Give exactly what you promise, or, if 
that be impossible, what will be recognized as a 
full equivalent. 

" An institution of this nature, wisely managed, 
would quickly prove itself to be a seminary of 
sacred and benign influences, and an agency more 
potent than many laws in the preservation of 
peace and the reformation of the public morals." 

We now have in Cleveland a new and handsome 
" People's Tabernacle and Music Hall," costing 
about $80,000, $44,000 of which sum has been 
given by Mr. W. H. Doane. The building is large, 
cheerful, and attractive, has double galleries and 
five thousand opera-chairs. 

Here cheap but the best entertainments will 
be given, the very large hall making it possible to 
pay expensive talent, with low prices for tickets. 

We need in each large city what is being made 



64 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

practicable in Boston, Worcester, Lawrence, and 
North Easton, Massachusetts : namely, free lec- 
ture courses for the people. John Lowell, Junior, 
of Boston, dying at thirty-seven, was the first to 
begin this noble work. In his will he left a 
quarter of a million dollars, half of his fortune, to 
" provide for regular courses of free public lec- 
tures upon the most important branches of natural 
and moral science, to be annually delivered in the 
city of Boston." None of the bequest could be 
used for buildings, and ten per cent, of the accu- 
mulation of the fund was to be set aside annually 
to continue it. 

The Lowell Institute course of lectures was 
opened December i, 1839, since which time from 
six to ten courses have been given yearly by some 
of the most distinguished persons in Europe and 
America to large audiences. Free instruction in 
drawing is given to mechanics and artisans, and a 
course of lectures for advanced students in art, at 
the Institute of Technology ; also practical design- 
ing in patterns for prints, silks, paper-hangings, 
carpets, etc. 

The Lowell fund also sustains a " Teachers' 
School of Science," with lectures in physics, 
geology, physiology, and the like, open to public 
school-teachers on Saturday afternoons. 



EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT. 6$ 

Worcester, Massachusetts, in its County Me- 
chanics' Association, has had two courses of five 
entertainments each yearly since 1880, at an aver- 
age annual expense of $2,104. F° r th e six years 
previous a single course was given each year, with 
six or seven lectures. 

Lawrence, Massachusetts, has a fund of $100,- 
000, left by Judge White for the benefit of the 
industrial classes. A course of not less than six 
lectures are given each year on good morals, in- 
dustry, economy, etc. The beautiful city hall, 
seating 2,000 persons, is always crowded at these 
entertainments. The fund also provides $1,000 
for the purchase of books for the public library. 

At North Easton, Massachusetts, the Oakes 
Ames School Fund has furnished, during three 
years, 109 free lectures on science, physiology, 
travel, and other topics, and the large hall has 
been crowded to hear them. The trustees have 
$3,500 to use yearly for the benefit of young 
people especially. Besides the lectures, an indus- 
trial school is maintained, magazines such as St. 
Nicholas, Wide Awake, Youth *s Companion, etc., are 
provided, and other expenses met for the comfort 
of the children, not coming within the regular 
school appropriation. No wonder the press of that 
town says : — * 



66 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

" The influence and educational power of such 
a series of lectures and course of instruction in 
a community can not be measured or properly 
gauged. From these lectures a stream of knowl- 
edge has gone out which, we believe, will bear 
fruit in the future for the good of the community. 
Of the many good things which has come from 
the liberality of Mr. Ames this, we believe, has 
been the most potent for good of any." 

As an antidote to communism, nihilism, and 
anarchy, — all leading to despotism, — which, under 
the aegis of liberty, are being advocated from 
scores of little halls in all our great cities, we 
need large, cheerful halls, people's forums, where 
clear truths on important questions may be taught 
the citizens of America. One hundred cities 
require halls that will seat from two to five thou- 
sand persons each. These cities should have a 
fund of from $50,000 to $100,000, the income of 
which should be devoted, annually, to securing 
the ablest thought of this and other lands. 

Finally, we need a complete organization, called, 
perhaps, "The American Lecture League," which 
shall embrace the managers of lecture courses in 
our cities, and all worthy and able lecturers. 

We hear of labor and political leagues ; why not 
an American Lecture League ? 



CHAPTER VI. 
THE PEOPLE'S COURSE IN ANDOVER. 

By Rev. F. BARROWS MAKEPEACE. 

TN starting this course, " I conferred not with 
-*- flesh and blood : neither went I up to Jerusa- 
lem " for any man's advice or money. If I had, I 
should have been discouraged from making the 
attempt, for I soon discovered that but few had faith 
in the success of the effort, and all were amazed 
at my reckless financiering. The argument was : 
" If entertainments which charge fifty cents admis- 
sion can not pay expenses, how can the cost be 
borne by a charge of only one tenth of that sum ?" 
But if I had taken more counsel I might have 
found that a similar work had already been suc- 
cessfully done by such workers as Kingsley, 
McLeod, Fairbairn, and others across the sea, and 
by two of the contributors to this volume, and very 
likely by some others. To some extent it has 
entered into the parish work of many ministers. 
But the effort has hitherto lacked definiteness and 
system, has only partially supplied the popular 



68 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

want, and has not been sufficiently recognized as a 
means of reaching and helping the masses for the 
noblest purposes. Efforts in this direction have 
often been left to a self-constituted committee of 
inexperienced persons, whose object was to pay a 
church debt or to add to the church furniture. 
When the debt was paid, or the instrument bought, 
the motive being exhausted, the lectures w r ere not 
continued. The pleasure and instruction gained 
by the people were rather winked at than encour- 
aged, and the occurrence of a new course of enter- 
tainments was left until the existence of a new 
debt. 

The People's Course is an attempt to furnish 
the people wholesome, legitimate entertainment, 
at prices within the reach of the poorest ; the 
whole work being done without reference to church 
lines, and from the desire to help the people. It 
recognizes the necessities described in previous 
chapters of this book, and attempts to supply 
them, as a labor of Christian helpfulness. 

For three years we have had an annual course, 
in the Town Hall, of ten entertainments. The 
course tickets have been only fifty cents, or at the 
rate of a nickel per night. Tickets for a single 
evening, however, have been placed at fifteen cents 



THE PEOPLE^ COURSE IN ANDOVER. 69 

each, in order to incline people towards the course 
ticket. Otherwise, two or three of the most amus- 
ing entertainments, but perhaps also the least 
instructive, might be selected and the rest of the 
course neglected. Such eclecticism must of course 
be discouraged. But people value what costs them 
something ; and if a course ticket is once bought, 
it is likely to be used for all it is worth. 

The purchase of the course ticket is also an act 
of economy in many cases. The man who begins 
with only an evening ticket is likely to spend twice 
the amount of a course ticket before he gets 
through. Still the evening ticket is practically a 
necessity. It is wanted by the traveling public 
and for the friends, perhaps " company," whom 
one likes to take with him for the evening. 

Upon the posters the object of the course is 
stated. The people are taken into partnership and 
trusted as any man should trust his business 
partner. They are told that if there is any surplus 
it will be applied towards the course of another 
year. Twice there has been a surplus, once a 
deficiency. There is now a deposit in the local 
savings bank to the credit of the People's Course. 
Not a cent has ever been sought or accepted, 
when offered, from any other source than the sale 
of tickets. 



70 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

There is no secret and no clap-trap about the 
management of the course. It proceeds as an 
item of business in a thoroughly business way. 
The course is well advertised, and long enough in 
advance of the first night so that the people may 
know all about the affair and decide whether to 
attend. Upon the course tickets is printed the list 
of entertainments. In this way each ticket acts as 
an advertisement and a reminder of what comes 
next. No doubt it leads to the sale of many even- 
ing tickets, especially if the number of course 
tickets is limited. As the writer was about to 
introduce the first lecturer last season, he was 
hastily summoned to the door, where he was told 
that there was already a demand for many more 
course tickets than the number of seats afforded 
by the hall ; and was thus addressed by a disap- 
pointed man: "Must I and my family stay out 
this year ? " 

The total receipts of this course are about four 
hundred dollars each season. From this deduct 
sixty dollars for rental of hall, and ninety more for 
expenses of printing, entertainment, etc., and there 
are left two hundred and fifty dollars to be divided 
among the lecturers, — an average of twenty-five 
dollars for each evening. As some lectures are 



THE PEOPLES COURSE IN ANDOVER. /I 

illustrated, and are thus made more expensive than 
others, a few must be had for less than this average 
price ; unless, as has generally been possible, the 
cost of the stereopticon could be met from the sum 
set apart for incidental expenses. 

This remuneration is enough, as a matter of 
justice, for an hour's address, especially if the lec- 
turer has a profession which is not interrupted by 
such occasional work. It represents nearly three 
weeks of the working-man's time ; and to elevate 
nerve above muscle more than that, is to furnish 
the working class with a grievance. 

This sum is enough, also, as matter of fact. We 
are unable to use all the opportunities of securing 
talent which are open. In truth, we consider it a 
compliment to any man for him to be invited to 
lecture in the People's Course. 

In towns remote from cities and educational 
centers it is no doubt more difficult, that is, more 
expensive, to secure lecturers. This difficulty may 
be partially met by bringing forward the latent 
ability in one's own town. There are few places 
in which persons do not reside, who have not 
acquired useful knowledge and had interesting 
experiences which might minister profitably to 
others. Bring such men to the front ! Organize 



J2 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

the native musical talent ; take up a matter of 
common interest to the community and have a 
general discussion, — with music or refreshments at 
the end, as a means of cooling off any rising tem- 
per. In every village, however small, it is safe to 
say that there is some one, at least, who can enter- 
tain others. Make that man an ally ! 

The work of securing proper talent may be 
greatly facilitated by a pastoral lecture-exchange. 
Let the pastor write one good lecture and, if neces- 
sary, he can carry forward an entire course by a 
system of exchanges with other clergymen who 
are similarly situated. A list of related topics can 
be marked out by clerical neighbors ; a valuable 
system of ministerial cooperation carried on ; the 
entertainment of the people secured ; and popular 
opinion largely shaped for good. But if the pas- 
tor can not undertake this additional work, or if he 
does not deem it wise, he may be quite sure that 
he will be able to obtain more good lecturers at 
moderate prices than he can profitably employ. 

I have written freely of the finances of the 
People's Course because of the inquiry many 
have made: "How is it done?" 

At present we are embarrassed by the success 
of the course. No hall in town is large enough to 



THE PEOPLE S COURSE IN ANDOVER. 73 

seat all who wish to attend. The audience is 
representative of the town. There are men from 
the mills, the farms, and the stores. The young 
ladies of Abbot Academy have attended each year 
in large numbers. Students from the other insti- 
tutions and the towns-people make up the rest 
of the audience. All ranks of social life and all 
religious denominations are represented. 

This is partly because there is an honest and 
earnest attempt in the arrangement of topics to 
recognize all elements. Practical questions of the 
day, such as " Socialism, " " Electricity," "The 
Great Civil War," have been discussed. J. 
Boyle O'Reilly, ll.d. gave a very entertaining 
lecture on " Illustrious Irishmen of One Century," 
which all Irishmen appreciated. It was felt to 
be a recognition of their race by the management, 
and inclined them to hear other lectures. 

So often come requests for our list of lecturers 
that one is given here in the hope that, by way 
of suggestion, it may help some. This, however, 
must not be understood as an advertisement or 
endorsement of any particular lecture, or as an 
expression of the thought that the courses might 
not, in some respects, have been better. 



74 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

LECTURES.— 1883. 

October 22. "The Czar and Nihilist." By 
Hon. George M. Towle. 

October 29. " A Journey Among the Planets." 
By Professor Farrington Mclntire. Illustrated. 

November 5. "Mexico." By Rev. A. E. Win- 
ship. 

November 12. "Constantinople." By Rev. 
Francis H. Johnson. 

November 19. " Evolution." By Professor 
J. P. Gulliver, d.d. 

November 30. "Electricity." By Arthur M. 
Morrill. Illustrated. 

December 3. " Socialism." By Rev. Charles 
Smith. 

December 10. " Cromwell." By Rev. Smith 
Baker. 

December 17. "The French Revolution." By 
Rev. F. Barrows Makepeace. 

December 21. "How to do Good Cooking." 
By Mrs. Daniells. Illustrated. 1 

LECTURES.— 1884. 

October 6. " The Chemistry of a Grain of 
Salt." By Professor James F. Babcock. Illus- 
trated. 

1 This lecture was followed by a very successful course of illustrated lectures, 
by Mrs. Daniells, 



THE PEOPLE'S COURSE IN ANDOVER. 75 

October 13. " Scenes from the Land of Burns 
and Scott." By Rev. E. C. Bolles, d.d. Illus- 
trated. 

October 20. " George Eliot." By Rev. Reuen 
Thomas, ph.d. 

October 27. " Illustrious Irishmen of One Cen- 
tury." By J. Boyle O'Reilly, ll.d. 

November 3. Concert. By the Andover Band 
and other talent. 

November 10. " Modern Discoverers in Egypt." 
By Professor John Phelps Taylor. 

November 17. "The Romans at Home." By 
Principal C. F. P. Bancroft, ph.d. 

November 24. " The Mission of Jumbo." By 
General John L. Swift. 

December 1. " Habit." By Rev. Michael 
Burnham. 

December 8. " Sydney Smith, the Witty Clergy- 
man." By Rev. H. E. Barnes. 

LECTURES. — 1885. 

October 5. " Oxford and its University." By 
E. C. Bolles, d.d. Illustrated. 

October 12. "A Basket of Charcoal." By 
Professor James F. Babcock. Illustrated. 

October 19. "Twenty Years Before the Mast." 



y6 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

By Charles Erskine, lately of the United States f 
Navy. Illustrated. 

October 26. " How to be at Home, at Home." 
By Rev. J. L. Hill. 

November 2, 9, and 16. Three Lectures on 
Art. By Rev. Arthur May Knapp. Illustrated. 1 

November 23. Concert. By the Schumann 
Quartette (Ladies), of Boston. 

November 30. " Personal Recollections of Cer- 
tain Generals. " By Rev. A. H. Quint, d.d. 

December 7. " Constantinople ; or, The City of 
the Sultans." By Rev. W. D. P. Bliss. Illus- 
trated. 

The following course has been arranged for the 
coming autumn : — 

LECTURES. — 1886. 

October 4. "An Old Castle." By Professor 
C. T. Winchester. 

October 11. "Words and the Use of Words." 
By Rev. Alexander McKenzie, d.d. 

October 18. "England Revisited." By Pro- 
fessor George E. Gladwin. 

October 25. "The Sentiment of Reverence." 
By President Franklin Carter, d.d., ll.d. 

1 This lecture was followed by a course of " Afternoon Art Lectures/' by the 
Rev. Mr. Knapp. 



THE PEOPLE'S COURSE IN ANDOVER. JJ 

November i. "Mexico, Historic and Pictur- 
esque." By Mr. Frederick A. Ober. 

November 8. " Evangeline : the Poetry and 
History." By Rev. E. N. Packard. 

November 15. "The Women of the Middle 
Ages." By Hon. C. B. Rice. 

November 22. " Some Relations of Plants to the 
Air we Breathe." By Professor George L. Goodale. 

November 29. Concert by the Andover Band 
and Readings by Miss Lena H. Capron. 

December 6. "A Man and His Partners." 
By Rev. F. Barrows Makepeace. 

December 13. "America's Struggles for Free- 
dom." By Mr. C. E. Bolton. Illustrated. 

An overflow course of afternoon entertainments 
has been planned for the present season as 
follows : — 

October 23. A humorous entertainment, Ven- 
triloquism, Charcoal Sketches, etc. By Professor 
R. H. Mohr. 

November 1. " Ancient Cities and Pyramids." 
By Mr. Frederick A. Ober. Illustrated. 

November 13. "The Artists of Spain." By 
Mr. Sidney Dickinson. Illustrated. 

December 4. " Westminster Abbey." By Mrs. 
Annie Sawyer Downs. Illustrated. 



?8 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

That Andover is a specially favorable place for 
such work is the frequent remark of friends. In 
some respects this is true. The operatives in the 
mills are largely intelligent Scotchmen and Eng- 
lishmen, who like to read and think. The town is 
fortunate in the character of its manufacturing 
interests and the exceptional ability of the mill- 
owners, by which the mills have been kept in 
operation, even through the dullest times. This, 
of course, tends to fix the working population and 
to impart the elements of courage and cheer. The 
presence in the audiences of so large a body of 
students is also an inspiration ; and the moral and, 
in cases, active support given to the movement 
by the professors and teachers has been most 
helpful. 

It has not been the intention, however, of those 
who conduct the Course that any service should be 
unpaid, except their own, and since the first year 
all lecturers have been paid, although in some 
cases considerably less than they deserved. 

But, in other respects, Andover is an unfavora- 
ble place for this kind of work. It is a town of 
less than six thousand people. The educational 
facilities are such that absolute need of additional 
or different instruction is not felt by a considera- 



THE PEOPLE'S COURSE IN ANDOVER. 79 

ble number. The workers in the mills are few in 
comparison with the whole population. The town 
is within twelve miles of Lawrence, Lowell, and 
Haverhill, and within an hour's ride of Boston, in 
all of which places entertainment of all possible 
kinds can be easily found, though few good ones 
are within the reach of the ordinary wage-worker. 
The largest public hall in town seats but six hun- 
dred, thus making any large popular movement of 
the kind proposed impossible. A comparison of 
the town with most manufacturing communities in 
New England, and with all cities, would show that 
Andover was a much less hopeful field for such a 
movement as the People's Course. If in such an 
old, staid, intelligent town such a movement is 
successful, a larger success may be predicted 
safely when it is properly directed in larger and 
differently constituted places. That the move- 
ment has been a success in Andover is the kindly 
utterance of the press and the freely spoken 
judgment of many observers. 

The Andover Review for February, 1885, having 
commented editorially on an article by Rev. Wash- 
ington Gladden in the issue of The Century Maga- 
zine for the previous month, says, with reference 
to the People's Course : " We may add that we 



8o FRESH BAlt FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

have watched for two winters the very successful 
working of a course of popular lectures in a town 
of about five thousand people. The pastor of one 
of the churches in the town secured the town hall, 
with five hundred sittings, . . . and was able to 
provide an enjoyable and instructive series of 
entertainments at the almost nominal sum of fifty 
cents. And the social and moral effect upon the 
community has been most happy/ ' 

Of the gratifying results in Andover from this 
work I will mention a few : — 

The working people and the poor feel that they 
have a friend. This they knew before, but they 
like to see the fact expressed in this way. They 
have received attention, and in such a manner that 
they appreciate it. Some who resist the preach- 
ing of religious truth are won by the application 
of it. Their shrewd common-sense tells them : 
" Every man is what he does, and does what he 
is." They gratefully welcome the aid by which 
they may the more help themselves. Their man- 
hood is not debased by an acceptance of charity. 
It is not charity — the ticket-holders pay for the 
course. Self-respect is increased, not broken 
down at any point. It is just here that courses of 
free lectures often do an incidental damage which 



THE PEOPLES COURSE IN ANDOVER. 8 1 

is wholly escaped by the system of cooperation 
and kindly feeling which form the working forces 
of the People's Course. 

The next result to be named is that this work 
tends to bind together all elements in the commu- 
nity. It touches a common feeling and reveals 
the universal kinship. Sectional bitterness and 
class distinction receive an antidote. There is not 
a church, a class, a school, or a trade that is not 
represented in the audience. Blessings which are 
open to all create no strife. 

Another result is that the material for thought 
is supplied. The topic of the last lecture is the 
subject for conversation, perhaps for days, in the 
mill, on the farm, and in the home. Books are 
taken from the public library which can give fur- 
ther information in that direction ; bits of in- 
formation are gathered up, and gossip is partly 
uprooted by the elevating force of a higher 
thought. Genius is awakened. A mechanic took 
an idea from a lecture, and soon after surprised 
me with an interesting photograph of the Free 
Church which he had taken with home-made 
apparatus. By having nobler thoughts men come 
to cherish a larger self-respect. "The mind 's the 
making of the man." 



82 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

This indirect way of introducing thought 
secures a hearing for themes in themselves deli- 
cate and difficult. If any question needs to be 
discussed, it can be done by this method in one's 
own fashion. Thus we have had lectures on " Nihi- 
lism," " Socialism, " and such topics. Matters of 
town interest can be taken up before an audience 
larger and more truly representative than any other 
that gathers in town. Truths can be presented, in- 
appropriate to the Church, and which the people 
could not, or would not, hear elsewhere. Great is 
the power and efficiency of the indirect method in 
dealing with men ! The work extends the Church's 
influence. Said one man : " If all churches would do 
something like that, the masses might be reached." 
Said a man, skeptical of religious truth : " It 's the 
best thing that's been done in Andover." It 
would be improper for me to quote further the 
pleasant things said by the press. But one can 
easily believe that such a work gives a man a wide 
acquaintance with the people, and would incline 
men to hear what he had to say. Instead of con- 
flicting with church-work, it extends the field. 

Again, it heads off trashy and offensive shows, 
plays, etc. The caterers to public amusement do 
not care to contest the ground at the rate of five 



THE PEOPLE'S COURSE IN ANDOVER. 83 

cents per evening. By an ordinary law of busi- 
ness, that of competition, the control of enter- 
tainment is brought very much under the local 
operator's influence. 

In all this work the best paid men are not those 
who receive the largest fees, but such as create 
the machinery and put it in motion. It will 
always be "more blessed to give than to receive." 
"Every age has its plenty of sorrows. Heaven 
help where there are no pleasures ! " To flash 
sunshine into darkness, to replace bitterness with 
friendship, to enrich and ennoble a thoughtful life, 
is more than a mere approach to the gospel : it 
is part of the precious gospel itself. To such 
workers are given the incomparable privilege, joy, 
and reward of Christian stewardship. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE OUTLOOK. 

TT remains only to add a few pages which shall 
-*• gather up some thoughts from preceding chap- 
ters, and express the hope that the present interest 
in the movement described is but the forerunner 
of a resolute and extensive effort. 

Evidently there exists a large and hopeful 
opportunity for doing good. It is not local, but is 
to be found in all the larger towns and cities and, 
in some measure, in every community. It is not 
temporary. The causes which create it are univer- 
sal and abiding. The demand for inexpensive 
entertainment is sure to create a supply. Evil is 
ready to occupy the field and has largely done so, 
until now. Patrons of vicious places of resort 
often act contrary to desire, and always contrary 
to conviction. They can not create for themselves 
the relief they need. Whoever will be their helper 
shall find an ally in the conscience of the people. 
The people enjoy being trusted ; and He who 



THE OUTLOOK. 85 

knew all men and all ages entrusted His most pre- 
cious truth to them. 

The experiences recorded in this little book 
show the possibilities of success in various com- 
munities and under widely-different local con- 
ditions. 

If a new method of rhetoric were devised, by 
which a great advance upon the unchurched masses 
could be made, would there not be instant and 
wide conviction that it should be used ? In fact, 
how men of peculiar utterance, or who have spe- 
cial facility of getting hold of others, are sought, 
employed, studied, imitated ! How great is the 
demand for the Moodys, " the two Sams," and 
others of like power with the masses ! But here 
is an opportunity for effective service overlooked. 
The inexpensive entertainment will successfully 
lead young people to ruin. Why not employ the 
same agency to lift them to a higher and nobler 
life ? No condition necessary to success is lacking 
except the Christian motive. It is the Master's 
call to a legitimate and sorely needed extension of 
His kingdom. 

This fact is being appreciated as never before, 
and the movement is rapidly increasing in volume. 
A goodly number of letters have been received 



86 FRESH BAIT FOR FISHERS OF MEN. 

asking for advice and suggestions. Clergymen, 
laymen, and earnest women are engaging in it. 
A recent graduate from one of Andover's academies 
writes : " I am . . . enthusiastic over this work 
you are doing, and have talked with many on the 
subject. " A private letter from a Chicago business 
man says : " A movement is now on foot to pur- 
chase land and erect a building for carrying out a 
similar project on a large scale ; ... we propose 
to furnish lectures, etc., of an elevated character 
for the working masses of Chicago at these low 
rates .of admission." Why should not each em- 
ployer make some such provision for his help, 
combining with others, if necessary, to secure the 
desired result ? Why should not each pastor study 
the community in which he labors to see if such 
a movement is not possible ? In many places 
ministers might in this way do much to bridge the 
chasm between the Church and the masses. There 
is time each year after the pastor's vacation, and 
before the week of prayer in January or the sea- 
son of Lent, for a course of healthful entertain- 
ments ; and it will be found afterward that the 
movement has secured the good-will of the many, 
and opened the hearts of some to hear the more 
direct message of our common Lord. And Chris- 



THE OUTLOOK. 8/ 

tian employers should be mindful of their help at 
all seasons. By providing proper entertainment, 
they may save their employees from drifting to 
that which is vicious. 

God speed the movement ! for by bearing the 
burdens of others, it helps fulfill the law of Christ. 



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